Product Description

Zines Vol One (and Vol Two) comprised The First History of the Zine Movement. In the past few decades a quiet revolution has gained force: over 100,000 “zines” (independent, not-for-profit self publications) have emerged and spread–mostly through the mail, with little publicity…
Our Zines Vol One and Zines Vol Two books have been used in zines workshops and college classes, as they were the very first books published on the “zine” phenomenon which refuses to go away. Following the Do-It-Yourself (D.I.Y.) principle of early Punk Rock, zine publishers have 100% control of their own content.
Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose are the goals of zinesters worldwide, and each zine publisher has his/her unique purpose or mission statement. Never has it been easier to produce a small but beautiful publication: 1) xerox one or more double-sided 8.5×11″ (or similar) sheets of paper, trim with a paper cutter on 3 sides, fold once, then staple with a long-reach stapler. Presto: your zine! If you use a higher grade of paper for superior photographic reproduction, you will probably not be sorry!
You can also produce a mini-zine by xeroxing a double-sided 8.5×11″ (or similar) sheet of paper, then folding it four (or more) times, trimming it appropriately, lastly stapling so it doesn’t fall apart. Presto: a mini-zine!

Additional Information

Weight

1.50 lbs

2 reviews for ZINES! Vol. I The 1st History & D.I.Y. Guide: Last Copies!

Rated 5 out of 5

admin –June 7, 2013

These fanzines represent an almost unprecedented breakthrough . . .”

–Alternative Press

V. Vale has published a masterpiece. A slice of otherwise discarded and forgotten culture is preserved in this fantastic book. I wonder what’s become of these zine makers since this book was published? I need more; maybe Zines 3 will surface! V. Vale is a true archivist of underground culture and should be rewarded for his efforts.”

The whole riot of the punk zine era has to be a respected one. In order to understand it I suggest reading this book. You’re giving examples of some of the pinnacles of the punk zines, giving inspiration not only to myself, but to those who wish to express themselves beyond their bedroom.”

Zines Vol One was very interesting. I loved it. I will definitely read it again.”

Rated 5 out of 5

admin –June 9, 2013

Vale: Tell us how you started Mystery Date. For source materials, you draw on these older–I hate to say out-dated–etiquette books?

Lynn Peril: They’re often frighteningly up-to-date. I had wanted to do a zine for a really long time. I had a couple of false starts. An original zine title that I came up with around 1988 was Bookhead. It was going to be about used books or books I liked, but that never really got off the ground. I have a folder full of ideas for that project.

Meanwhile, I have always been interested in popular culture-particularly how it pertains to women. I was inspired to collect etiquette books by reading Johnny Marr’s “(Anti-) Sex Tips for Teens,” a one-off issue of his zine, Murder Can Be Fun. It’s great; it goes the whole nine yards from the 19th century forward.

Everything finally reached critical mass, and I put out the first issue of Mystery Date, back in 1994.

Vale: You must have been incubating for years–

LP: I was incubating for years and years. I remember reading punk rock fanzines in the late ’70s and wanting to do writing for them, or produce my own. But I never wanted to do a music-only zine.

Actually, when I was a little kid I used to write my own books-about the neighbor’s cat or something like that. My friends and I were all into the soap opera Dark Shadows and we wrote a Dark Shadows newsletter.

When I moved out here, I had a boyfriend who worked at Subterranean Records. His employer kept every music zine that had ever been sent to him. There were boxes full of them under the counter space; I used to sit there and go through them and think, “I want to do this.”

Vale: How old were you when you did the Dark Shadows newsletter?

Cover of Mystery DateLP: Eight. It was just an activity for a rainy afternoon done mainly for pleasure. I still have my boxed set of Dark Shadows novels that I got for Christmas one year. I’m bummed because when my mom moved she threw away my Barnabas Collins game. That newsletter was hand-written and was not something we mailed out.

Now I have a Mac computer and it’s great. If you make a mistake on a typewriter, there’s no going back. Also, typing is incredibly labor-intensive.

I’m impressed that so many young kids-14- and 15-year-olds and even younger–are out there writing and editing zines. If only I had had the gumption to get it all together sooner!
Lynn Peril from “Zines Vol. 1”
Vale: The urge to publish a zine isn’t just born out of collecting etiquette books; it comes out of your entire life–

LP: And a large desire to get mail–I love getting mail! Creating a zine is the best tactic for getting mail. I have been known to get extremely upset–even outraged–if I come home to an empty mailbox. Sometimes I’m convinced it’s the end of the zine and no one’s going to buy another copy. Then someone will send me the greatest stuff. I know I should say I have loftier aspirations, but I think my number one goal is to get mail. [laughs]

Vale: Tell us how you started Mystery Date. For source materials, you draw on these older–I hate to say out-dated–etiquette books?

Lynn Peril: They’re often frighteningly up-to-date. I had wanted to do a zine for a really long time. I had a couple of false starts. An original zine title that I came up with around 1988 was Bookhead. It was going to be about used books or books I liked, but that never really got off the ground. I have a folder full of ideas for that project.

Meanwhile, I have always been interested in popular culture-particularly how it pertains to women. I was inspired to collect etiquette books by reading Johnny Marr’s “(Anti-) Sex Tips for Teens,” a one-off issue of his zine, Murder Can Be Fun. It’s great; it goes the whole nine yards from the 19th century forward.

Everything finally reached critical mass, and I put out the first issue of Mystery Date, back in 1994.

Vale: You must have been incubating for years–

LP: I was incubating for years and years. I remember reading punk rock fanzines in the late ’70s and wanting to do writing for them, or produce my own. But I never wanted to do a music-only zine.

Actually, when I was a little kid I used to write my own books-about the neighbor’s cat or something like that. My friends and I were all into the soap opera Dark Shadows and we wrote a Dark Shadows newsletter.

When I moved out here, I had a boyfriend who worked at Subterranean Records. His employer kept every music zine that had ever been sent to him. There were boxes full of them under the counter space; I used to sit there and go through them and think, “I want to do this.”

Vale: How old were you when you did the Dark Shadows newsletter?

LP: Eight. It was just an activity for a rainy afternoon done mainly for pleasure. I still have my boxed set of Dark Shadows novels that I got for Christmas one year. I’m bummed because when my mom moved she threw away my Barnabas Collins game. That newsletter was hand-written and was not something we mailed out.

Now I have a Mac computer and it’s great. If you make a mistake on a typewriter, there’s no going back. Also, typing is incredibly labor-intensive.

I’m impressed that so many young kids-14- and 15-year-olds and even younger–are out there writing and editing zines. If only I had had the gumption to get it all together sooner!
Vale: The urge to publish a zine isn’t just born out of collecting etiquette books; it comes out of your entire life–

LP: And a large desire to get mail–I love getting mail! Creating a zine is the best tactic for getting mail. I have been known to get extremely upset–even outraged–if I come home to an empty mailbox. Sometimes I’m convinced it’s the end of the zine and no one’s going to buy another copy. Then someone will send me the greatest stuff. I know I should say I have loftier aspirations, but I think my number one goal is to get mail. [laughs]

Excerpt: Al Hoff – Publisher of Thrift Score

Vale: Why did you publish Thrift Score?

Al Hoff: First of all I always “thrifted,” but it increasingly became more of an obsession–I went from once a month to every weekend. There’s so much great stuff to be retrieved out of thrift stores, yet no one discusses this as a concept or a lifestyle. Thrifting involves many different groups of people: poor people, art people, students. I had friends who thrifted a lot; one day we were talking and realized that no one had ever written about thrifting: “Hey, someone should write a book!”

A few months later I had a “temp” job and during work I started making notes on what might be interesting topics to cover. I also raised “issue” questions like “Why is something valuable when it’s at the mall, but not at the Salvation Army?”

Vale: Do you ever buy something because you think it’s “cute”?

AH: To me “cute” is a negative word; people used it in high school and I had a lot of problems with it. It reminds me of walking into a Hallmark card store with someone’s grandma–when she says something is “cute,” you have to lie to agree with her.

Vale: I’m thinking of a ceramic statue of a chihuahua with big brown eyes, begging–

AH: I have one of those! I bought big-eyed dog statues for years, but now they’re “in”–in fact I just saw one of my sad-eyed dog figurines on MTV; it was behind the veejay. I thought, “Uh oh–time to take it to New York!”

Here’s an example of how my irony has shifted around. I always bought those big-eyed things (mostly repro-paintings of Keane, Gig, Eden, etc.) just because of how they looked–they were absurd, but there was something so great about them. They’ve been piling up in the corner for years. Our new house has this long narrow hallway you have to walk down to get to the bathroom, so you can’t avoid it. I had an idea to line the entire hall with these paintings (and I always buy only the sad ones, not the happy ones) so it’ll be a Hallway of Sorry (like in Night Gallery).

Then I thought of those “I Love You This Much!” statues of people with their arms outstretched. They’re about four inches high. There’s a whole series of them: “World’s Greatest Grandma,” “World’s Greatest Fisherman,” and there’s one of a guy with these beseeching eyes and arms outstretched saying “I Love You This Much!” I see these all the time, and I thought of having a shelf of them at the end of the Hallway of Sorrow–you go through all this sorrow, and there’s this embrace of love at the other end–this antidote.

After I started buying these “I Love You This Much” statues, I discovered there’s an incredible diversity in them. Now I’ve got many variations of men, women, children, and animals. One night I had this epiphany while staring at them: the saddest thing on earth is an “I Love You This Much” statue that someone threw away! Here I was thinking that was going to be a happy part of the hallway, when in fact it was even more sorrowful. Imagine someone giving you that as a gift, “I Love You This Much,” and then you ditch it!

Excerpt: Noel Tolentino – Publisher of Bunnyhop

Vale: How did you fund the Bunnyhop [issue] with the Matt Groening “Binky” on the cover?

Noel Tolentino: Seth saved up money, and I applied for a credit card specifically for the magazine. It’s been maxed ever since Bunnyhop started. The high interest rate encourages me to work harder to get the next issue out! There’s a total lack of profit.

When I was first exposed to Matt Groening’s work in 87, he was still relatively underground. I was looking at a t-shirt with “Binky” on it, and I had no idea who that was. Then I saw his book, and I completely identified with his work. I was a fan of “The Simpsons” from the get-go. So when I did the “Binky” cover [Binky knocking out the Trix rabbit] it was an homage to him.

When I did the cover I realized I was using characters that were trademarked or copyright-protected, but I also felt I was creating a scenario that would not otherwise have existed: placing these characters from two different worlds together.

I had heard from various sources that Matt Groening was a big fan and collector of small press zines, so I got his P.O. box address. Being na�ve, I sent him a copy with a gushing fan letter asking to interview him.

Here I was believing that Matt Groening was actually going to open my letter, not realizing that he must receive a ton of mail every day from a whole generation of slackers and counter-culture do-gooders. I was in L.A. working on the production of Ben Is Dead when the letter from the lawyers arrived.

Vale: How did you react?

NT: I thought, “We gotta fight this!” Seth, being a bit more level-headed, said, “We don’t really have the resources to defend ourselves.” Of course, I felt betrayed. I was having difficulty sleeping–it was so horrible.

NT: Not only that, they demanded that an apology be printed in a “prominent place” in the next issue of Bunnyhop, with text that had to be approved by them first! We ended up decapitating Binky’s head from the covers and mailing 300 of them in a bag to the lawyers. I wrote a cold, minimal apology–and anyone with a keen eye could recognize a little sarcasm in it. The whole experience was incredibly disheartening. I put an insert in the mutilated copies explaining what had happened and left them at certain places. I wonder if the issue here is irreverance. When you’re using or recontextualizing trademarked characters, there’s a whole gray fuzzy area. What exactly is the problem here?